Information Request

Hey everyone. Im a brand new player who got referred here by an acquaintance. Ive never played Ultima before, so Im about as green as they come. Im looking for a bit of metagame info on skills in this version, as many other UO servers are in a different build with different balance and skills.

A bit of additional info. I have played another MMO called Eve Online, and I notice some parallels(to say the least). In eve I did a mixture of smuggling, exploration(treasure hunting?), and sometimes theft. So Im attempting to find a build that fits.

Of the skills, Hiding, Lockpicking, Stealth, Snooping, and Stealing are apparently non-negotiable, though the last two are not 100% for me. I also would like to ger Magery up to like 50 at least so I can use gates and marks and recalls often and with ease. Especially if Im treasure hunting?

So, I need info on the following skills to round out the build(you guys call them templates right?) :

Cartography: Information is sparse, but it apparently relates to finding hidden treasure troves. However, according to the uor GM table, the skill is extremely rare, and does not appear to ger a great deal of use. I suppose this is compounded by the addition of the included map utilities. Does GM cartography have a place, or is sneaking into dungeons and picking chests a better use of my time?

Detect Hidden: Again, GM numbers are very low. It appears according to the conflicting data available online that 50 is all you need for trap finding with regularity, and everything above that is for PvP? Isnt there a reveal spell though? Seems like it might be useful but not to GM.

Remove Traps: When its less popular than "taste identification" it seems bad. Analysis of later versions and comparison implies that current era traps are easily avoided. Useless?

Tinkering: Related, this has a low pick rate, and searching shows current gen traps can only be used on locked chests, and have significant restrictions to the point of uselessness. I like the idea of using ambush tactics if I must PvP, but I require more information.

Poisoning: Some searching says even with gm poisons are removed by cure potions, whixh everyone carries. That being said, does magery poison have synergy for PvE purposes? Additionally, can food be poisoned? This isnt really for combat so much as because its funny. I like the idea of a poison mage(Necros in Diablo 2 were great), but these sort of things are always a toss up.

Item Identification: Seems narrow in scope, but its entirely a case of opportunity costs. I looked over some ID wand trades and it did not appear thsr identification was expensive. Still, I have to ask. The skill holds some appeal to me. It also has 1000+ GMs.

On a last note, if I make a non-combat sneaky treasure hunter type, are there any crucial support skills I would be overlooking? Im eyeing magery GM, but considering no meditation since Id be castint sporadically. Evalint would be unneedee as well in that case.

Are there any crafting or trade skills well suited to such lifestyle which could be done on their own?

I realize this is a monster post, but I appreciate your help. Im looking forward to understanding this game in great detail.

People have detect hidden so they can access high-tier locked chests before gm lockpicking.

When gm item ID you can identify a whole container of items at once. Just not the containers within containers

Pretty no Magery poisoning synergy but yes you can poison food. Some dexxers will pick up poisoning to he more of a risk to casters in pvp. Or just carry multiple weapons

Tinkering is good for crafting your own tools to power your other crafting skills. If you're doing lockpicking, tinkering will help with being able to make locjpicking eventually. Just wouldn't do craft and lp on same character.


I'll let someone else take part 2

You said a requirement is non combat so, a dungeon lockpicker is likely what you are after.
A resourceful player can make a very rewarding career out of this character.

There is much information on this character type, templates, and skill leveling options right here on the forum.
If after some research you think this might suit your interest and you have followup questions, I'd be happy to help.

Could you elaborate on detect hidden giving access to chests? Do you mean some chests are hidden, as opposed to locked?

So identification is significant at reducing the cost of identifying, or specifically for saving time?

Thanks again.


Edit: Sorry, to clarify, non-combat is not an exclusive requirement. Rather, combat is not a requirement. I like sneaking, but if I accidentally get a combat skill due to synergies I dont mind. Id just consider it not a goal in the slightest.

My main interest is the payout for cartography, and its viability.

Edit2: Dungeon lockpicker sounds perfect. Is there a template around here for it? Ill check the guides section in a bit to find more info. Sadly lunch is almost over so I wont be able to search in earnest for a couple hours.

I never made a lock picker here and kind of forgot the deets. With 4 years of dust, I believe the level 4 chests require 95 or Gm to attempt. You can start with 5% less lockpicking skill if you have Gm detect hidden.


Could be wrong. Not the expert here!

Ok, as Jack the Ripper woud say, let's break this thing down into parts.

First of all, it is hard to define the usefullness of one skill without taking into account the correlation with another. Lockpicking and Detect Hidden, or Hiding and Stealth. These go hand in hand. Remove Trap is pretty much useless unless you are a REAL STEALTH dungeon picker. And even then, you could pretty much get away without it.

Second, what is it that you want to do? Be a thief? Then yes, you're on the right track with hiding, stealing, snooping. You can build around this dependding on the type of thief you want to be. To be a petty bank thief, then add stealth. To be a combat thief, add weapon skills, etc.

Treasure Hunting. Treasure Hunting can be VERY profitable, and herein lies the use ffor Cartography. Carto is used to decode treasure maps. Once decoded, you need to go out and find the spot in the map (easy now with how many T-Map rune libraries there are), and dig the treasure up. Once you dig it up tho...it gets interesting. Monsters spawn when you dig up a treasure. There are different levels, but let's just say that when you get to the higher lvls, you need mad skillz to be able to do them alone. Don't get me wrong, you can still make a killing just doing lvl 3 and 4 t-maps, but lvl 5's and 6's is where it's at.

Dungeon picker. This is fun...for a while. If you plan to GM lockpicking you'll need to do it regardless, as the last 5 skill points in lockpicking can only be gained by practicing in chests in dungeons. Most of them around pretty deadly creatures. I always GM my pickers using gate (magery) -> Hide (hiding) -> dbl click gate -> sneak close to chest (stealth) -> pick it (lockpicking) -> take one step back (stealth) -> open chest which triggers trap but doesn't harm you as you are away from it -> loot -> recall out. It is somewhat profitable, but everyone seems to be fighting over the same limited number of high end chests, which makes it frustrating at times. Of course you could want to wander through whole dungeons picking and looting everything inside them, and here's where remove trap might be useful (so as to not alert PvMers, and more importantly PK's of youre presence). You will need Detect to Remove traps efficiently (I believe), so take that into account too.

Hope this helps a bit.

You'll be swimming in ID wands if you're a dungeon picker, BUT it is a PITA to ID things one by one when the Item ID skill can identify EVERYTHING in he first level of a container. So it saves time mostly. And most of the stuff you find in dungeon chests is crap, mostly.

Welcome! I've been fumbling around on a lockpicker lately myself. you can get practice boxes of different tinkering levels (for me i did 50/70/85/gm to get to 95 from safety of my home)either by making a side tinker character or going to shops like Boothby's behind the Occlo stables. After that point you need to focus on dungeon chests. Apparently DH makes that more painless though.


magery's also good to have for telekinesis so you don't have to eat chest traps in the face/GM disarming traps. if you make a tinker alt and give her mining you can have a steady stream of free lockpicks coming in as well.

at any rate, you have a ton of character slots tso play with, so have fun!

Level 1: 35 Lockpicking
Level 2: 77 Lockpicking
Level 3: 80 Lockpicking
Level 4: 95? Lockpicking
Level 5: 100 Lockpicking
Level 6: 100 Lockpicking

Important Note: Detect Hidden currently grants a 5% passive bonus to Lockpicking on UOR. So GM Detect Hidden gets you +5 lockpicking. This is rather lovely if you're lazy like me, because training Lockpicking to 95.0 is easy, and going from 95.0 to 100.0 is a nightmare and a half.

Im zeroing in on a build. Two more questions I forgot.

Deadly Poison implies the Poison is quite Deadly. If someone is hit by it without a cure handy, how much of their life will they lose? Can you die from that alone?

From what Ive read, theres a lot of empty space out in the wilderness where not many people go. Are there regions with nothing of value, or is there always something to find somewhere on the fringe? I like exploring. Wondering if there are any playstyles which cater to this. Most likely for an alt.

Lesser Poison: (1 Nightshade)
Target loses approximately %3 health every 15 seconds, when successfully applied

Poison: (2 Nightshade)
Target loses approximately %4 health every 10 seconds, when successfully applied

Greater Poison: (4 Nightshade)
Target loses approximately %7 health every 10 seconds, when successfully applied

Deadly Poison: (8 Nightshade)
Target loses approximately %13 health every 10 seconds, when successfully applied

lots of builds (not the elitist way but the great fun way!) like ranger templates are fun for just worlding

Archery/tactics/anatomy/taming/lore/vet/___ i recently have one of these and it's a blast (fencing on mine but really want to change it to archery, chose magery/med as the 7th skill split)

I like you. So that 13%... how long does it last? It sounds like its slow to kill, but hey who knows. Just trying to see the ballpark and if its worth it to hand out poisonburger sandwiches to people.

i feel like the poison ticks faster than what is listed. i'll have to try it in a bit. most can spell cure (macro world of everything gm just because is majority) and cure potions are more common than sandals on players

Deadly poison, as the name suggests can kill. It is very helpful as you can't heal through poison, and it will add up to a bit of damage. However, it is not hard to cure, so most peple use lesser poisons as a means to interrupt a victim's healing, or make them HAVE to use a potion or some mana and casting time to cure as opposed to actual damage.

To die just from poison you have to be pretty...non-attentive, as it will take over a minute to kill you.

What if I pickpocket their cure potions?

Would need to pickpocket their bandages and garlic or ginseng.

Then they'd die. Oh, wait, you'd need to nab their root, pearl or moss too so they can't recall away. Keep in mind most people recall away at the sight of danger.

Who said theyd see me?

Uh, final question. Can magery gm alone be enough to drop treasure guardians, if I use summoning? Or would I need more if I want to be a treasure hunter?

You can do the lower maps with magery alone, but the lvl 4-5+ pretty much require a group or tamer or some sort of bard template to be cleared.

To be a bit more precise, provocation, peacemaking, or even maybe discordance would be a good addition to a solo treasure hunter template, that is if you didn't want to go the tamer route.

I personally have cartography, hiding, magery, lockpicking, itemid, and some housekeeping skills on my "treasure hunter" and use alt accounts to actually kill stuff while my carto guy hides.

That way, I have full powered characters that didn't have to waste slots on hiding, lockpicking, and carto to actually fight the higher level mobs.

You also have to consider that you have to actually accumulate treasure maps to do.

Eventually you may get to the lvl 7 treasure maps where you can bring slayer weapons in on a solo player to try to ironman them (highly recommended).

Love your enthusiasm and thinking/planning of the what-could-be's.

It will be easy to get lost in the minutia. That said, I suggest a very basic, easy character to putt around the game on and pick up knowledge as you play.

A dungeon picker is a relatively easy character to develop, as is a thief. A poisoner however would be rather challenging if left to supply your own training materials and I fear the you'll find that the pay off is disappointing.

MANY skills, many paths. Pick a road most traveled at first... there'll be time to dive into the briar patch later.